The Justice Department's Inspector General is investigating contact between FBI field offices and representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a report to Congress first flagged by reporter Ryan Reilly shows.

The FBI cut off contact with CAIR in 2008, citing evidence in a Hamas-financing trial that tied the organization to both the Palestinian terrorist group and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Internal records of a U.S.-based Hamas support network listed CAIR among the group's member organizations. "[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," a senior FBI official wrote in 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."

FBI Director Robert Mueller reaffirmed the ban on working with CAIR during congressional testimony in April, 2011.

But reports about field offices defying that order have surfaced repeatedly.

Last year, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on efforts by the Hartford, Conn. field office to hide their work with CAIR officials. An e-mail obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that agents were unhappy having to abide by FBI headquarters' policy of not working with CAIR.

"I can only share our mutual disappointment in the ongoing stalemate between CAIR-National and our FBI office in Washington, DC," wrote the agent, whose name was redacted. "It is apparent that until the stalemate ends, FBI Headquarters will continue to instruct all FBI field offices across the country not to have formal relations with their local CAIR Chapters. It is not a decision each field office makes on their own. This mandate/order is given to us by FBI Headquarters."

The investigation is disclosed in the IG's semi-annual report to Congress.

"In response to a congressional request, the OIG is reviewing interactions between FBI field offices and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)," it says. "The review will determine if these interactions were in compliance with FBI policy and guidance that restricts certain interactions with CAIR."

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, Henry remarked. For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it.

Though Henry never faced modern-day Islamic terrorists, he was around for other miscreants, known as pirates. And unlike Bush and Colin Powell, neither he nor our other founding fathers consorted with the pirates representatives and pro-pirate civil rights groups in America. In those days, our leaders didnt make Coalitions Against Piracy with the countries who hosted and harbored pirates. And they didnt make statements saying that this was not about piracy and pirates, a peaceful group who just wanted to plunder, rape and pillage.

But, unfortunately, as Ive described in my recent columns, President Bush has invited representatives of the most radical, pro-terrorist Islamic groups in America to pray with him at the National Cathedral, to pray with him at the Washington, D.C., mosque, to sit near Mrs. Bush at the big speech to Congress and to hold hands with him at the White House.

One of those groups, CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, is among the most dangerous to American security. CAIR is an outgrowth of Hamas front group the Islamic Association of Palestine. Oliver Buck Revell was the FBIs associate director in charge of Investigative and Counter-Intelligence Operations from 1985 to 1991, in charge of all FBI terrorism investigations. [The Islamic Association of Palestine] is an organization that has directly supported Hamas military goals, he told Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill. It is a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants. It has produced videotapes that are very hate-filled, full of vehement propaganda. It is an organization that has supported direct confrontation. It is also an organization that exists without impingement in Texas.

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